heat wave

I don't actually like to make conversation about the weather, unless prompted by someone or absolutely overwhelmed by it. In the case of this entry, it's safe to say that in the next few days, we will experience the latter.

We've been pretty luck thus far. Other Bike and Build tours (Southern US, among others) have certainly experienced worse heat than us. And last year, NUS rode into a heat wave going through the North Dakota and Montana plains. That must have sucked. But up until today, there have been few other days on our trip where the heat has become unbearable. It happened on the 120 mile day to Gays Mills, and on the 97 mile day to Bowling Green. As today's 70 mile ride began cool, riding along the shores of beautiful Lake Koocanusa, it warmed up quickly, and ended a blistering 93 in Libby.

Apparently the Northwest, of all places, is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave, and we are riding right into it. Today Seattle reached the 90s, Portland hit 100, and still other areas climbed to over 100, and it's expected to get hotter. These are places that are used to seeing 70's in the summer, even 60's in some of the coastal and higher inland areas.

Tomorrow we ride to Sandpoint, Idaho under more 90-degree weather, and for our build day on Saturday, the tempurature could rise to near 100. The following rides on Sunday and Monday, to Chewelah and Republic (both in Washington state), we're probably going to experience temps somewhere around 100. And it's dry. No clouds, much less any rain.

In other non weather-related news, we had another fantastic ride today. It was hot, and I was exhausted from too little sleep the past two nights (had some internet and Olympics to catch up on), however the scenery was pretty freaking amazing. Lake Koocanusa (catchy name...figure it out) is actually a huge reservoir created by the damming of the Kootenay River. It stretches for 90 miles through a massive valley, from British Columbia to Montana, and is filled with some really, really fresh water. And no development, as we were in a national forest, so little traffic (except for all the damned logging trucks) Carved into the steep mountain edges, the road weaved in and down, up and out, and left many a photo opportunity. The shoulder was wide, and we made many stops, including one to climb the side of a cliff for a better view (like the views weren't good enough already). It was probably one of my favorite days of the trip, a good day to be tired.

Riding into Libby, the trees became more and more sparse on the hills. It's a logging town, of course, some mining too. Lots of poverty. One of the riders (Jessie) met a woman working at the gas station, who is trying to raise children on a minimum-wage job, with little help from the government. She loved what we were doing, but lamented that the local Habitat affiliate was not doing enough for the reason. Actually, I think she specifically said that it was a total joke. I'm sure it was a difficult position for Jessie, who knew that the organization she was representing had the capacity to help people like this woman, but realized the limitiations of an organization trying to tackle an overwhelming problem. There are just too many people in need.

One final news flash: we're still in the Rockies. Not sure why I thought we'd go through Glacier and be done with them, but we're not. We're just not climbing any more passes through them. For the past two days, we've had mountains on both sides. Today we're in Libby, which is set under peaks that are still partly snow-capped. Tomorrow we'll see even more snow-caps riding into Sandpoint. I'm not actually sure when the Rockies end and the Cascades begin, or when we'll just be amongst rolling hills. All I know is that, from here on out, we're probably not going to hit any flat land.

A longish ride tomorrow, 85 miles. We're getting up at 5:30 to beat some of the heat, so I better get to bed. Perhaps I'll keep a little water on me.